


Guardians

by scarletrebel



Series: Kindred Light [1]
Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-16 02:34:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8083294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarletrebel/pseuds/scarletrebel
Summary: They don’t do this kind of thing. They didn’t venture into the Vault of Glass, they didn’t capture Skolas, and they definitely didn’t kill Crota. They’re not the Guardians who should be here. Avia was warned, way back when, with easy going jokes and light hearted comments, that Grier was every bit the Warlock when it came to his curiosity. The closer they got, the more she realised just how far that curious nature went.





	

**Author's Note:**

> a monstrously late birthday present for mrpinstripesuit on tumblr. 
> 
> introducing to ao3: Avia, my Destiny OC. Awoken Hunter who doesn't do feelings. Well. Doesn't do feelings well. (and Grier, sweetest Warlock alive who you can find out more about on pins blog!)

It’s hard enough to stop Grier from wandering off during missions. When she first met him, Avia soon gave up on trying to get him to stay in one place, to go here or there. Grier isn’t the taking orders type, in the same way a puppy doesn’t understand sit from stay.

From the second they boarded the Dreadnaught, it became increasingly obvious the curious Warlock just can’t restrain himself.

Avia doesn’t mind in the slightest, never has. She’d rather argue with Grier over exploring unknown territory than butt-heads with another Hunter any day. She cares about him, enough to follow him onto the ship of a Hive god-king, apparently.

Still, it doesn’t help that she’s feeling incredibly underprepared. Guardians are altogether apprehensive towards the Dreadnaught, even with its weapon shut down. But Grier, ever the Warlock, is untouched. He’s talked nonstop about scouting Oryx’s fortress ever since it wiped out the Awoken fleet. He’s utterly un-phased and totally unaware, and Avia _envies_ him more than she’s willing to admit.

No matter how she tells herself otherwise, Avia feels sick when she gazes out at the wreckage surrounding the Hive ship. News that the Queen was dead, and her unfathomable brother missing didn’t fill her with joy. She wanted it to. She hasn’t been to the Reef, hasn’t spoken to Petra, and hasn’t told Grier why the Queens loyal dog has sent her message after message.

She owes Petra nothing, and the Awoken even less.

“Avia!” Grier’s voice bounces off of the reinforced metal of the Cabal ship, high and excited. He’s found something.

Avia pulls her shotgun from her back, the Supercell snapping to her hip. She finishes off a Legionary messily, and turns around in time to watch Grier glide up a ramp towards a sectioned off room. He disappears, yells in surprise, and kills whatever caught him off guard, the rattle of his gun loud and final.

When Avia follows the same path, stepping over three Psion’s on the floor, Grier’s Ghost is scanning a monitor encoded in the Cabal language.

“Can I ask why we’re in here when you said you only wanted to ‘check out the Dreadnaught’?”

“We are checking out the Dreadnaught! Look at this--”

“Grier,” Avia moves closer, her voice flat and unimpressed. Her ‘big sister’ voice as Eden had called it, teasing, when they were arranging a mission to the Moon with Grier some months back.

“—The Cabal have just dispatched a recon team deeper into the Dreadnaught. They think Oryx is hiding in another realm he has stored in here, probably the ascendant realm like I told you!”

“So call Cayde and tell him to get that fireteam who put the beacon here in the first place to check it out. Let’s leave, Grier, we’ve explored enough.”

“There’s no time, Avia, they’re going there right now, they’re going to try and get through this thing they’re calling a rupture--”

“Okay, no – there is no way in Sol that we are going up against Taken, Hive, and a cabal recon team! Grier, they’ve probably got a Primus leading that mission and if Oryx shows up we don’t stand a chance.”

Grier’s stance changes, pulled upright by a string of interest. “Do you think he will?”

He sounds delighted at the idea. This presents two problems.

One; they don’t do this kind of thing. They didn’t venture into the Vault of Glass, they didn’t capture Skolas, and they definitely didn’t kill Crota. They’re not the Guardians who should be here. Two; Avia was warned, way back when, with easy going jokes and light hearted comments, that Grier was every bit the Warlock when it came to his curiosity. The closer they got, the more she realised just how far that curious nature went.

Avia steps up to Grier (forever angry at the height he has over her) and tries to be as pleading as she can without sounding pathetic.

“Grier, please, just call Cayde. Or better yet, Zavala. We’re not prepared for this – we don’t do this kind of thing, you know that.”

“But--”

“If you don’t, I will.”

The Warlocks shoulders remain upright, pulled taught. Avia stands in the silence, staring at him, daring him to come up with a good excuse that isn’t Hive related. She can wait.

His posture changes once more, and Avia struggles to read it. Not quite sadness, or the restraint that she’s hoping for. It isn’t defensive, but it isn’t defeated.

Zavala’s voice rings in Avia’s ears, and her chest tightens.

* * *

All Grier offered her was an apologetic shrug before running off to another unexplored corridor of the Cabal ship. Avia knows better than to argue with Zavala, especially now, especially with what he’s just asked them to do.

It still doesn’t mean she has to listen to him. Grier’s Ghost can feed him enough telemetry to get a grip on the situation, Avia told her Ghost to keep the channel closed on her end.

She follows Grier silently, listening to him chatter on and on about Hive realms and the planes of existence. Eventually she decides to tune him out. She hates doing so but the fact of the matter is she’s getting those pre-fight nerves in her stomach, behind her knees and elbows and she has to focus.

 _“Why are you always like this before a fight?”_ Petra had once asked her.

 _“I’m never like this before a fight,”_ she’d countered. _“I’m like this when I have no idea what I’m being dragged into.”_

_“That’s called being a soldier, Avia.”_

It wasn’t long after that she decided she didn’t want to be a soldier anymore.

* * *

Of course, Eris Morn gets dragged into the mission, because when the Hive are around no one is safe from her stupidly poetic speech and her out of context ways.

Grier follows her orders dutifully, still riding the high of exploration despite just watching a _Cabal Primus_ get Taken. Avia isn’t shaken, but the mission is turning more into a rabbit hole by the second.

“Avia!” Grier yells and yeah, sometimes she gets why people sincerely confuse him for a younger sibling.

“What!” She yells back, shooting a rocket into the face of a Hive Knight. Totally worth it.

“Help me find this last statue!”

Avia’s eyes roll into the back of her head as she drops down from one of the walkways.

The battlefield sloped down a hill, the Cabal’s ship extended out to one side and providing refuge up above. The familiar Hive architecture sloped down the hill and further on, monstrous shapes adorned with dark glyphs pressed up against torn apart shrapnel from the ship. The dangerous clash of two worthy opponents. And they’re right in the middle of it.

She jogs over to him. “Alright, what am I looking for?”

“A statue!”

She grits her teeth but the smile forms anyway. “What kind of statue, Grier.”

“Oh! It looks like a Thrall. Like this one, see!”

Grier grabs her by the elbow and pulls her none too gently over to a Thrall, mouth open, armless, bulking and intimidating. It looks like it was carved from diseased bone.

She glances over it. Grier points out the other, lying propped up against wreckage from the Cabal ship.

It doesn’t take them long to find the last one. Well, it doesn’t take Grier long. Eris starts talking again as Griers curiosity piques and his mouth outruns his brain. Avia’s channel remains silent, which suits her. She takes to watching Grier’s back, knowing that the ascendant planes of the Hive are less important than making sure Grier doesn’t get mowed down by a handful of Knights.

Something ripples through the air suddenly, the sonic boom of the Queens vestiges breaking light speed flits through Avia’s subconscious, and Grier yells triumphantly.

“It opened!” He cheers, looking back at the portal they scanned once Oryx had levelled the battlefield by taking the Primus out of it. Avia opens her mouth to ask what they do now, but Grier is floating away from her and towards it like a damn moth.

“Grier!” She barks, jumping after him. “Wait!”

But the Warlock is gone, running towards the portal as if it’s anything less than uninviting. It reminds Avia of a black hole and like _hell_ she’s letting Grier go through it.

As she hits the broken in half bridge it sits on, she catches the scruff of his robes just in time.

“What-!”

“ _Grier!_ ”

He whips around and Avia can just feel the confused – _Avia why aren’t we running headfirst into a Hive related danger zone?_ – look on his face.

“This is it! The rupture! The portal to the ascendant plane--”

The rest of Grier’s sentence is lost in the shrieking cries of Thrall.

They crest from the portal like a wave, Eris shrieks something at Grier, and the two of them back up, up, up. Grier glides, chucking a solar grenade and Avia thinks _to hell with this_ , and tries to make Cayde proud.

The void energy courses through her, pinpoints in her chest, flows out to her arms.

Ikora had told her that Tevis was a good man. A great Guardian, a better Nightstalker. But there was something he didn’t understand about the void. Something most Hunters forgot.

_“You don’t control it. You can’t. You are merely a conduit for its power. You take it and shape it into a weapon, and then you let it destroy.”_

High above the Thrall, she forms the bow, calls the arrow, and releases it.

The arrow hits the bridge hard, curling into a sphere, an anchor. It explodes outwards, indigo tendrils reaching out with sharp intent, clasping onto the Thrall. As Avia and Grier kill them and clear the bridge, she thinks of the Queens vestiges again, of the throes of battle. The first lines retreating, making way for something more ruthless. The Thrall stop running through.

“Come on!” Grier shouts and Avia catches him again, skittish from the void bow. It’s only the third time she’s used it, well, _properly_. Her hand shakes on his collar.

“We are _not going through that!_ ”

Grier pulls for a second, and she digs her heels in.

“Avia--!”

“You ever take second to think what might be on the _other side_ of that portal?!”

Grier whips around, the portal framing his form, rippling even as the awkward hold Avia has on him twists her wrist and forces her closer. He makes an exasperated noise, but then waits, stills. Avia pulls her hand away, slowly, trying to convey to him that it doesn’t mean she’s letting him go.

“Oh,” his shoulders slump forward, as if the motion was Avia taking his excitement and ripping it out of him. Her stomach sinks. “Shoot. Sorry.”

“What?” _Travellers light_ , was it possible not to be confused by this kid?

“’M sorry,” Grier mumbles.

“You don’t have to be sorry, Grier, just--”

“You don’t like not being prepared.”

Avia stops. She exhales, a slight laugh, fond and light.

“I shouldn’t have tried to drag you into – I should’ve asked, or something, Idontknow--”

“Hey,” Avia says softly, taking a mental breath, trying to relax her body. “You didn’t drag me into anything, Grier.”

She thinks, for a moment, in the lull. Grier wants to see Oryx. The God of a species of monsters Grier finds infinitely fascinating? Yeah. With his own two Awoken eyes, he wants to see Oryx. The Hive King, the monstrosity, the story – the minds image – that went around the Tower like wildfire. Three eyes, a cloaked body, two horns tapered along his head. Massive. Imposing. A conqueror.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for being a bit of a buzzkill.” Avia says.

“Hah, it’s okay.”

“Okay, rude. First of all, the correct response is ‘no Avia you weren’t a buzzkill, thank you so much for keeping me safe!’”

Grier doesn’t answer, and Avia worries immediately after her own words. Were they harsh? Not quite playful enough? Then she hears the buzz of Grier’s comm.

“Zavala wants us to go through.” He states simply.

Avia’s eyes widen, her face under her helmet contorts; _oh does he._ Oh, she was going to be having words with Zavala.

“Zavala can go jump off the Tower, as far as I’m concerned,” she seethes. “We’re not even a full fireteam, Grier.”

The words seem to fly over the Warlock. He starts stepping, ever so slowly, backwards.

“Grier.”

“You don’t have to follow me. You can wait here, if you like.”

“Grier, I swear on the Light and the Traveller and every star in the goddamn galaxy _if you don’t--!_ ”

A lot of things happen in the space of the following three seconds.

Grier turns, says _I’ll be right back_ and Avia thinks _no you won’t, you idiot_. So she bolts after him, and what happens then doesn’t register immediately. She watches him bounce, rejected by the portal in a spectacular fashion, and fly with an _oof!_ down through a parting in the bridge, flipping over his own feet.

She gets whiplash from stopping so fast, skidding to halt just close enough for the portal to not eject her in the same way.

She starts laughing.

“That wasn’t funny!” Grier whines.

She keeps laughing, and laughing, and laughing.

“Avia!”

“It was! It was hilarious, oh my--”

“ _Avia!_ ”

Her laughter quietens instantly at the quick and panicked turn of Grier’s voice.

Her instinct is to move to where she can see him. But, something ghosts down her spine as she steps forward. She pivots on her front foot. Her gaze is matched by three eyes and a cloaked body, two horns tapered along a head. Impossibly black like the darkness itself and chuckling at her. Lifting a clawed hand.

Oryx screams, howling mad, his face exploding in familiar solar light. _Grier_. The hand retracts, harmless. Oryx looks to Avia’s right as more of his Taken spill out of the portal by his side.

“Avia, _run!_ ”

She does.

Pivoting back, she runs and leaps over the crack in the bridge, clutching the Supercell to her chest and turning in time to try and beat back the Taken that surround Oryx. Her head darts around for any sign of Grier. She calls his name, hears nothing, growls in frustration and then moves again.

As she jumps down from the bridge, something explodes near her feet and jolts her landing, slamming down on her toes. One hand on the ground, pushing up, correcting herself, she calls for Grier again. Her wrist hurts, she shakes it out as she runs up the hill, back towards the opening in the Cabal ship. The Cabal have retreated.

“Ohhhhh not good,” she mutters. “Not good, not good, not good.”

She breaks the top of the hill and turns. Taken shoot at her from below, Oryx floats towards her, and she _still can’t see Grier_.

* * *

Grier wonders, not for the first time, if Avia is going to kill him.

Well, she’s definitely going to be mad. He’ll never hear the end of it. Oh no, she’ll probably tell Rook and Eve. Then he’ll _definitely_ never hear the end of it.

In his defence, it’s the Hive. And it’s not his fault his fireteam members forbade him from travelling to the Dreadnaught all by himself, and in the same breath swore off going there themselves.

“I aint stepping foot there until I know Oryx is dead,” Rook has said, doing that thing that Avia likes where he swishes his knife around with one hand, through his fingers, this way and that. (She’d threatened to take her own blades and put them somewhere not nice if Grier mentioned it to Rook.)

“He’s right Grier,” Eve’s non-existent gaze stayed on the screen she was using to sort through weapons for an upcoming strike on Venus, the lights behind her plated face dim. “The Dreadnaught will still be there once Oryx is dead.”

But Rook and Eve didn’t know what he did, what Eris had told him about the ascendant planes, Oryx’s throne world and the Shades of himself he sent forth from there to do his bidding, so that he was untouchable. What if the Vanguard decided that the Dreadnaught just needed to be destroyed? The Cabal had already tried that, hadn’t they?

Avia took some convincing, but she’d said yes eventually. When it came to his fascinations with the Hive, she always said yes. She always helped him out, always watched his back. Always fought in his corner when Ikora called it an ‘obsession’ and the mad Warlock who chased a power that could never be his hung in the air.

Rook told her to keep Grier safe with a wink before they left for the Dreadnaught, and she’d blushed.

The memory is what finally makes Grier scared, as he watches Avia run from the Shade of Oryx that’s staring at him. She messes up her landing, and Grier sprints underneath the bridge behind her, following her up the hill until something hits him in the back, knocking the wind out of him. He ducks to the right, breathing hard, using shrapnel from the Cabal ship as cover.

He peeks back at the Shade, watches it summon forth a projectile, no doubt similar to the one that hit him. It felt like a blunt force hit on his back, as though someone had picked up something heavy and whacked him with it. He’s been hit by weapons of the Hive’s arsenal plenty of times. It always stung, like the Darkness had bit him sharply.

Is it possible that the Shade is _pure_ Darkness, then? Its weapon must be derived from it. A blunt force hit rather than the intricacies of dealing in pain. How _interesting._

The Shade, it’s an extension of Oryx’s will, manifesting itself into the Hive god, acting as his eyes and ears. As Grier watches it stalk forward, he observes it; powerful, and yet utterly disposable. Oryx takes but he can create as well, by the hand of his sheer will he puts back into the universe what he steals from it

It’s so cool.

But, it’s also trying to kill Avia. So it has to die.

He hears her call his name; _right, she can’t see me._ Grier twists his head back to the top of the hill, hoping to catch her eye. He watches, locked onto a rocket that goes whizzing past, exploding an Acolytes Eye and the Taken surrounding it. He uses the reprieve to jump out from behind his cover. Avia’s helmet settles on him, rocket launcher propped on her shoulder, fingers coiled around the trigger. The visor-less stare of a Hunter primed to fight. He waves at her.

Turning back to the Shade, he pulls on the Light inside of him, and summons Radiance.

Solar wings lick at his back and extend across his shoulders. Warm, familiar, powerful. He propels himself into the air, throwing his Light at the Shade; squaring up against it, daring it to come closer.

Ikora has urged him to take on the powers of the Stormcaller, and it’s not that Grier doesn’t want to. It’s just that he’d asked Avia about the Arc Blade once, and her face had scrunched up. She hated it. A constant buzzing, an ache, a need to dig your blade into something, and afterwards feel nothing but that ache turning angry and hungry. More, it wanted.

Solar Light is patient. Demanding, but patient; like a King commanding his armies to strike at the right time. It doesn’t take, or destroy, it merely kills.

Grier can just hear Ikora’s melodical laugh in his head; _merely?_

Avia runs below him, back to the Supercell, killing Taken with renewed fervour. She settles into the heat of battle soon enough, like pulling on gauntlets it comes so easy to her, and so they fight. Two champions of Light stepping up to the challenge of the Darkness.

* * *

“So this idiot,” Avia guffaws as Rook places a shaking hand on Eve’s shoulder, clutching his belly, rolling with laughter. “Goes spinning, straight up spinning, and crash lands about five feet away, his feet over the top of his own head--”

This might be the happiest Grier has seen Avia in a long time. He can’t help but smile, and given the performance she’s putting on retelling their mission, it probably comes off as bashful.

“And then Oryx is like, ‘oh hey Guardians, how’s it going? You wanna die today?’”

They’d landed back at the Tower as the sun set across the mountains. Eve and Rook were waiting for them in the New Monarchy lounge, but Avia was itching to give Zavala an earful. They didn’t meet up until the sun had long since set, Avia still spitting fire and Grier nursing his wounds.

“Ohohoho Grier,” Rook giggles in the present. “Leaving the Hunter to do all the work, eh?”

“No!” Grier cries and turns to Avia. “And I’ve told you thousand times already it wasn’t Oryx, it was a _Shade_ of Oryx.”

“Yeah, but you said it was a manifestation of his… Will, or something, so technically--”

“No! No technically it wasn’t him, technically it was--”

“Travellers shadow, Grier, spare us,” Rook cuts in as he leans towards Avia, a glint in his eye. Oh, Avia’s going to love that. “I wanna hear more about how you pulled our boy out of the fire.”

Avia leans back, matching him, the beginnings of a flirtatious back and forth that normally has Grier rolling his eyes and Eve excusing herself.

“Actually, Rook. He pulled me out.”

Grier tilts his head in confusion. Rook straightens up, ruffled. “Really?” The human asks, whimsical, waiting for the punchline.

Avia smiles warmly at Grier, her eyes fond.

“All those stories going around about Oryx? They’ve got nothing on seeing him up close. And I was up close, Rook. I froze up.”

“Oh?”

“Uh-huh. If Grier hadn’t of acted when I didn’t?” Avia shrugs, and Grier remembers. The Shade towering over her, her body stiff and rigid, normally such a fight of flight fighter. “ _That’s what they teach you, the Awoken_ ,” she’d told him once. “ _You see something that’s the enemy? You either fire or run. It’s how you stay alive.”_ And then, sourly. “ _You’re no use to them dead._ ”

He’d chucked that grenade at the Shade without even thinking.

“Heh,” Rook pulls him out of his stupor. “Maybe you’re rubbing off on him.”

“Our sweet little Warlock,” Eve starts, and Grier can recognise the lights in her face, the way they move even eyeless to form an expression; impressed. “Learning from a Hunter.”

Avia reaches over, ruffles Grier’s head, and dodges easily when he waves his arms around to get her to stop.

“If it makes you feel any better Eve, I think he’s having an effect on me too.”

“How so?”

“You ever known me to run right into the Vanguards business?” Avia says, mischievous again. She nods her head at Grier. “He dragged me into it, and he got me out. If he wants to study Oryx and the Hive so bad, maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to stick my nose in a bit more.”

“Avia,” Rook breathes dramatically, a hand on his chest. “Becoming a Guardian, finally?”

“Ikora will be so proud.” Eve muses. Avia laughs, an exhale.

“Don’t tell Cayde.”

* * *

“Did you mean that? What you said about the Vanguard?”

“Hmm? Oh, no, not really, I was just trying to get under Zavala’s skin. The Vanguard are annoying but they’re not actually a bunch of Traveller-hugging--”

“No, no not that.”

They’re dangling their feet from the roof of the Terrestrial Complex, watching some veteran Guardians show newborns where to look for materials. Spinmetal is one of the easiest of the solar systems planets to find, but the two they’re observing seem to be having a hard time. They’ve passed each other in their individual searches too many times for Grier to count.

“So what then?” Avia asks, brow furrowed. She shouldn’t be taking her helmet off, no matter how low level the zone is, but neither her nor Grier care. His own sits by his side.

“The thing about sticking your nose in? Doing it more?”

Avia inhales softly; _oh_. Her expression softens, she looks at Grier. Their gaze’s line up, the same way they do on the battlefield, the same way he knows they did on the Dreadnaught.

“I think,” she starts, then stops. “You really, really wanna see Oryx, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Grier answers faster than even Avia was anticipating.

“You know there’s only one way that’s going happen, right?”

Grier’s face scrunches up. “If… He kills me?”

“No, Grier.” Avia says, light hearted. “There’s no doubt the Vanguard are going to launch a Raid on the Dreadnaught in order to end him, seeing as it’s a lot more difficult than they thought, what with his throne world and all.”

Grier tries to hide his sheer delight. “Oh, so you do listen to me.”

“On occasion,” Avia smiles. “Our little excursion confirmed that whoever does take him out is going to have to meet him in his world. On his terms.”

“Makes sense. Eris says that making a Guardian ascendant won’t be easy, but even if they kill him on that plane he could still escape death,” Grier’s been thinking about the Shade a lot since they got back. Powerful, disposable. Leering at Avia, its dark chuckle trickles into his head.

“He needs to die.” Grier finds himself saying.

Avia shoots him a look, eyebrow raised. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Someones gotta do it.” A pause, and then. “It could be us.”

“What?”

“I’ve been thinking… Look, we were too young in the Light, both of us, when the Vault was found,” Avia’s hands come up to animate her words. This doesn’t happen often, the last time being when she yelled at Zavala for calling Grier reckless. “Crota wasn’t our battle – and I still maintain that. But. Grier, it could be us. This Time. We could kill a god.”

“We…” Grier’s mind races, talks with Eris, time pouring over notes scratched in margins, scrawled writings of a Guardian gone mad. Lunar temples, shrines ever spinning and alive. The ascendant plane, a throne world, blades of famine and hearts of twisted monsters born and bred by the darkness.

Grier looks down across the Cosmodrome. The veteran Guardians stand, arms crossed, judging their underlings who are now talking to each other. Tired, fed up, but persevering. They’re lively, through it all. Figuring something out.

His curiosity piques.

“I guess,” he says, not really thinking about it. Avia continues, encouraged.

“If anyone could lead us, it’d be you.”

Grier laughs out loud at that.

“Okay, well, I mean, if anyone could keep us from walking face first into a stupid load of Hive mumbo-jumbo, it’d be you.”

“I’m just a curious Warlock, Avia. Like they all are.”

The two newborn Guardians have started searching for materials together. They look in different places to maximise their efforts, but they stay close to one another. It helps with the Hive and the Fallen that shoot at them. They’re watching each other’s backs whilst working towards their goal.

“In fact,” Grier starts, not looking at Avia; at the Hunter who takes care of him above anything else. “If anything, my curiosity nearly got you killed on the Dreadnaught.”

“Shut up,” Avia snaps, not unkindly. “It’d take a lot more than your curiosity to kill me, kiddo.”

Grier laughs. They lapse into silence. The older Guardians are talking to one another, their postures pleased, victorious as they watch the newborns work together.

“Listen,” Avia cuts into the silence. “I know we all tease you for it, but your curiosity saved me on the Dreadnaught. You weren’t scared of that thing Grier, I thought Oryx was coming to kill us just for _fun_. But you knew what it was, that it could be killed. I froze up like an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot! You were just, scared.”

“Grier,” Avia says, the tone obvious; _it doesn’t matter_.

“Besides, I lead you there in the first place.” He says, small. He remembers contacting Zavala behind Avia’s back, the irony of her advice to him some time ago; _you’ll get in less trouble if you at least tell the Vanguard you want to investigate a bunch of super dangerous Hive stuff_. Her change in posture, the face he imagined behind her helmet when she found out. The prospect of inspecting a portal to Oryx’s throne world, or even to an ascendant plane was just far too tempting for him.

“No, I followed you.”

“Avia,” he’s exasperated. “You don’t like being lead into things you don’t know anything about.”

Avia chuckles. “You’re right, I don’t. I also don’t like not having a choice in the matter.”

“Exactly!”

“But I _chose_ to follow you. Onto the Dreadnaught, and then on that mission. Do you see what I’m saying?”

Grier doesn’t. His mouth is agape, his expression twisted. Avia sighs fondly.

“I’ve told you about the Reef. The Awoken, why I left. I didn’t…” she sits, chews on the words until they form.

“The Awoken weren’t my family. When I came here, I was content with being alone. When I became a Guardian, even more so. Then I met Scarlet, and Eden. They forced me out of my shell and while I’m grateful, I didn’t make it easy for them. Then came Rook, Eve. And then _you_ ,” her mouth twists, she looks at him with a wide grin. “Came along with your enthusiasm, your intelligence and the curiosity that fuelled it. You were this, annoying charming little Warlock who wouldn’t leave me alone, I thought. You just got under my skin and stayed there – I know Rook jokes about it but I honestly thought the both of them pushed you on me on purpose. It took me so long to realise you just enjoyed my company. You made me feel like I was wanted. No more lone wolf for me once you came along.”

“Avia,” Grier breathes, thankful that the Hunter continues. _As if_ he could come up with something to say right now.

“I’d follow you. Into every Hive temple, onto any ascendant plane. You’re my family, now. You’re my brother. It’s more than just protecting you, Grier, you make me want to be a _Guardian_ , a real one. What you did on the Dreadnaught, when I couldn’t, you’re what makes me believe we have a chance against things like Oryx. We can kill him, Grier. For the Vanguard, for the people in the city. You’ve changed me, you little _shank_. I don’t think I’ve ever cared about anyone as much as I care about you.”

Now he really doesn’t know what to say. He looks at Avia, at his _sister._ The Awoken who ran, the soldier from the Reef who isolated herself, who he was told no one trusts, and Grier could never figure out _why_. The Hunter who put up such a front but crumbled, her pride forgotten whenever he needed help. The _Guardian_ , real no matter what she thinks, who gives more than she knows, who was kind and thoughtful and patient, so patient from day one.

He yanks her into a hug.

He squeezes her without hurting, one hand clasped around her shoulder, the other wrapped around her waist, his head buried into her neck. She reciprocates fully, arms curled up to grip across his own broad back, hands fisted into his robes, resting her head platonic, caring, and protective, on top of his. He ignores the liquid heat he feels drop into his hair.

“Alright, alright,” Avia murmurs, pulling away but not letting go. They smile at each other.

“Be serious,” Grier murmurs, detaching from her. Avia’s eyes are wet. “You only want to kill Oryx so Rook will date you.”

Avia laughs, high and loud, at that. “You think that’d do it?” She asks, half sincere.

He laughs back, looks down at the now four Guardians gathered together. The newborns look tired but proud, as do the veterans.

“Do you really think we could do it?” Grier asks.

“Do you?” She says.

Eris doesn’t talk about Toland. Not to anyone, but one time Grier managed to gleam something from her about him that suggested they might have been close. Closer than she’d like to admit, given everything. It was a correction, to something Grier had said, and with everything that’s happened – it’s flying around his head like a firefly.

She told him, bit at him almost that herself and Toland _lead each other_ to ruin. _Lead_ , using each other for their own ends; her quest to kill Crota, his own interest in the Deathsingers. They didn’t follow each other, not in the same way Avia followed him to the Dreadnaught, to the portal, to wherever his endless curiosity takes him.

He looks at her again. The Hunter who encourages his ramblings and goes from teasing him to fighting in his corner when it raises questions. Who keeps him grounded, helps him sneak Hive worms into the Tower complaining all the while, but pulls him back from running into ascendant planes where angry Hive Gods lie.

His sister.

“Yeah,” he says. “I think we could kill a God.”

**Author's Note:**

> in before Rise of Iron comes out in 12 hours [thumbs up emoji]


End file.
